Shot glasses are filled before the toast during an attempt at the world's biggest bourbon toast hosted by New Riff Distillery on the Kentucky side of the Purple People Bridge in Newport, Ky., on Tuesday, July 31, 2018.(Photo11: Sam Greene/The Enquirer)

The secret is out – Northern Kentucky is getting its own bourbon festival this fall.

Kentucky's Edge Bourbon Conference and Festival is branded as the "South By Southwest of Bourbon" and hopes to draw people from all over the country to Northern Kentucky.

The event isn't your typical festival or conference. It will sprawl across Covington and Newport on Oct. 4 and 5, 2019. Organizers said the event combines music, cigars and bourbon and hope to have an international draw.

"Everybody associates Kentucky with bourbon and Northern Kentucky has a long history of bourbon," Brent Cooper said. "It has always been a part of our history."

Cooper highlighted Northern Kentucky's distilleries – New Riff, Old Pogue, Second Sight and Boone County – and the B- Line, which Cooper described as a "bourbon adventure." This event won't take customers away from those places, in fact, it will encourage them to visit them.

Kentucky's Edge is the brainchild of Bill Donabedian – the man behind MidPoint Music Festival, Brandemonium and Bunbury Music Festival – and Kevin Canafax, VP Regional Public Affairs at Fidelity Investments and co-Founder of Brandemonium and Suits That Rock.

Donabedian said he and Canafax "started conspiring" about a bourbon event in Kentucky about a year ago. He said they wanted an event that drives visitors to venues around town, like local distilleries and the B-line.

Kentucky's Edge will have an artisan market in Mainstrasse, a music festival in Newport, bourbon tastings and pairings, workshops and a conference at the convention center.

Canafax, a Kentuckian born in Newport, said the event will help change the idea that Northern Kentucky isn't really Kentucky, just an extension of Ohio.

"We are somehow disconnected from Frankfort and the rest of the Commonwealth," Canafax said. "This event, we truly believe, is going to strengthen that connection, familiarity and brand with the rest of the state."

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Thousands of bourbon barrels are stacked up at the site of Ken Lewis' New Riff Distilling, Sept. 19, 2017, in Newport, Ky. He put them there this year after buying the property.(Photo11: The Enquirer/Kareem Elgazzar)

Canafax and Donabedian wanted to make two signature events. For Cincinnati, their venture is Brandimounum, Canafax said, but Cincinnati also has Oktoberfest and Taste of Cincinnati, which are also their own events.

Brandemonium and Kentucky's Edge also occur one right after another, to increase the draw for both events.

"There's nothing over here," Canafax said. "We frequent Mainstrasse when we're having our brainstorms. It was bourbon, it was like an epiphany. The B-line has been created over here and they're trying to tie this part of the state to the rest of the Commonwealth as it relates to bourbon and the bourbon trail."

The name came from a phrase Donabedian heard once, that this area is the "northern edge of bourbon country" and for Canafax the name also highlights the competitive edge that bourbon gives the state.

Later last year, the chamber announced a teaser to the festival, then called the Roebling Reserve festival. The rebrand hopes to have more of a draw for those who might not know the Roebling Suspension Bridge.

Hotel and ticket packages for Kentucky’s Edge Bourbon Conference & Festival will go on sale Friday, March 1 at noon. Individual event tickets will be available late March or early April.